Ask Me Another for Thursday, October 24, 2013

We recorded this episode at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota--Twin City to Minneapolis--so we thought it appropriate to play a trivia round about other types of twins: fraternal, identical, conjoined--and all creepy. Host Ophira Eisenberg leads this game, and while its contestants are in no way related, they share a trivia-minded brain. House musician Jonathan Coulton isn't a twin either, but he pays homage to other duos with a cover of "Happy Together" by the Turtles.

Listen Now

If you could have any spy gadget in your repertoire, what would you choose? Maybe a mind-reading device that gives you all the answers to this trivia game. This round imagines that James Bond, who boasts a "license to kill," has other types of licenses--a "license to grill," for example. Contestants must guess words that rhyme with "ill" to reveal Bond's other activities.

Listen Now

Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax, make fun of bad movies for our enjoyment. On Ask Me Another, the pair goes head to head to guess whether hilarities such as "War With the Mutant Spider Ants" or "Death Bed: The Bed That Eats" are movie titles, Choose Your Own Adventure book titles, or Weekly World News tabloid headlines.

Listen Now

A "spoonerism"is a type of wordplay that flip-flops the initial sounds of two words. In this game, host Ophira Eisenberg makes spoonerisms out of famous names, leading to some unusual turns of phrase. For example, if we said, "An actor best known for playing Luke Skywalker becomes a warning that a warm-blooded animal is approaching," the answer would be, Mark Hamill turns into "Hark, Mammal!" Spoon on!

Listen Now

Believe it or not, there are songs out there that don't follow the grammar rules of Strunk and White's Elements of Style. In this round, house musician Jonathan Coulton sings well-known tunes whose lyrics take grammatical liberties, and, like your 4th grade Language Arts teacher, corrects them. Contestants must guess--or better yet, sing--the original lyrics.

Listen Now

The author of the memoir Orange Is The New Black: My Year In A Women's Prison speaks about navigating the prison social structure, cooking behind bars and the differences between her actual experiences and those depicted in the hit Netflix series based on her story.

Listen Now

It's Opposite Day for this final round, in which puzzle guru Art Chung will give you the "opposite" of a well-known book title, and you must figure out the real one. For example, "The Visible Woman," is a clue to The Invisible Man. So if we tell you "bad misfortune," what we really mean is--good luck.